________________________________________________________________________

This is the sixth sermon that we have preached from the book of Hosea, and by now you've probably started picking up on his style of preaching and on the basic storyline of the messages. Ephraim, or the northern tribes of Israel, has stopped serving Jehovah God and has turned to idols. Because of their unfaithfulness, God is going to allow the Assyrians to invade and conquer the land. Hosea is the preacher in the north who -- along with the prophet Isaiah in the south -- is proclaiming the need for repentance and for the people to turn back to God. In the first six chapters of this book we have seen how God has given Israel every chance to repent and get things right and yet -- because they did not repent -- now His judgment has progressed until now He is no longer with them and judgment is inevitable.

As we move into chapter seven of this prophecy, we have moved in between the pronouncement of judgment and the coming of that judgment. That there is a delay in the pronouncement and the culmination of God's wrath is in itself a testimony of God's mercy. God has withdrawn, but has done so gradually, slowly, and reluctantly. He is watching to see if there is any chance that Israel might turn around and return to serving Him with their whole heart! What a merciful God that we serve! He is the God who will forgive and who will not turn away a "broken and contrite heart."

Unfortunately, Ephraim does not return to God. Despite the preached Word from two mighty prophets and despite the storms and trials that their sin has brought, Israel continues literally "hell-bent" down it's path away from God. For that reason, this chapter takes on a unique character in the book of Hosea. There is not found in this chapter a plea from Hosea for the people to return to God, for he has already done that and it has been unheeded. This chapter is all Jehovah God speaking during this "waiting" time between the pronouncement and the culmination of the wrath of God. Just because the people have decided not to return to the Lord, doesn't mean that God stops speaking. And so chapter 7 of this book is sort of a "play-by-play" analysis of the condition of Israel from God's viewpoint. God is sort of describing the spiritual condition of Ephraim to whosoever will listen.

________________________________________________________________________

When God speaks, there is always something worth hearing and learning! Now I know that all of the Word of God with it's stories and poetry and such is the inspired Word of God and was authored by the Holy Spirit. But within this Word of God, there are times where the direct words of the Almighty are recorded as He speaks directly. These passages such as the "red letters" of the New Testament are always powerful and pertinent. Such is this portion of Hosea. We could do a separate sermon on every verse of this chapter, but when you read this chapter there is one verse that stands out as unique.

Verses 1-8 talk about the lies and hypocrisy of Israel's leaders and then compares Israel to a half-baked cake in an oven that has not been turned. They are lukewarm, rich with the blessings of God on one side and cold and raw on the other. Because of their inconsistency, God will reject them. This teaching is true and fitting but not really an uncommon analogy. We find the same sort of analogy in the book of Revelation where John describes how God will spew the church of Laodicea out of His mouth because of their lukewarmness (Revelation 3:14-16).

Verses 11-16 compares Ephraim's attempt to escape God's judgment by making alliances with their enemies to a dove trying to evade capture in a snare. God's wrath will descend like judgment upon them no matter what they do or try. This an analogy that is used elsewhere in scripture, also. The term for a bird trap, "snare," is mentioned in scripture no less than forty-six times.

But verses 9 and 10 are something somewhat unique. Look at them with me.

Because Ephraim has turned to try to make friends with the very people sent to destroy them, their strength has been sapped. And the strange thing is as their spiritual strength has disappeared, they have not even realized that it was leaving. That is interesting enough, but coupled with the next phrase, we get a comparison that is not found anywhere else in scripture:

A literal rendition from the Hebrew would read as "Gray hairs are sprinkled here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." What a unique and provoking condition! Let's think about what it means as applied spiritually.

First of all, there is nothing more contrary to nature than this figure of speech, for who gets gray hairs and does not know it? If you were somewhat unconcious of the fact that your hair began to turn gray, then of a surety someone would let you know about it! I never had gray hair until I began pastoring. Not having much of it, I have never been one to closely scrutinize my hair every day. But one day we were sitting somewhere and my wife shrieked as if a mouse had run over her leg and then immediately began poking around at the side of my head. "Whatever in the world are you doing?" I asked rather anxiously because I was expecting to hear that there was this big, fuzzy spider climbing up my head. "You have gray hair," she announced! It happens to the best of us, right!? But even if you were an unobservant person, someone close to you is sure to point out your new hair color that is coming out. And if someone doesn't tell you, eventually you are going to run into one of those horrible things called mirrors which will reveal to you the facts that your hair is a different shade (and for some of us a different thickness) than it once was. For someone to start getting gray hairs -- especially to the point that they are sprinkled throughout their head -- and not notice is certainly a unique point.

I did some research this week on graying hair. You may or may not be interested in what I learned, but I have the microphone, so humor me for a moment!! One strand of your hair grows for two to four years when it then enters a resting state for about four months. After that resting state, it then falls out and is replaced by a new hair follicle in your head that takes it's place. For people who go bald, the new hair follicle doesn't grow back as thick as the original each time resulting in thinning hair. On average, somewhere between 85% to 90% of your hair is growing at any one time and the average person loses up to a hundred hairs a day.

Hair is actually a dead protein cell called keratin. It has a substance that is joined with it at the hair root called melanin. Melanin is what gives your hair color. The chief purpose of melanin, by the way is not just to color your hair but to cause your hair to have moisture and thus be manageable. As you grow older, the body gradually stops producing melanin. The color of keratin without any melanin to color it is naturally white. So gray hair is hair that has lessening amounts of melanin and white hair has none at all. All of this tells you what you probably already knew without a Harvard's scholar study: Gray hair is a natural by product of aging in the body. It is nature's way to remind you that you need to be a bit more careful and cautious because you aren't as young as you once were. It also serves to announce to others that you are a wiser person and not as foolish as you were when you were young. That's why in the Bible the scriptures say:

If a Godly person is gray headed, it is a crown of glory because it is a testimony that someone who is wiser and more experienced has realized their need for God and for serving Him! Gray-haired people who are living for God are a witnessing tool to the younger people in the church because they are proof that even when you are older and wiser, you need God. I thank God for our young people but we need older, more seasoned people as well. When you hide your gray hairs or dye them or pluck them, you are basically testifying to others that only the young and inexperienced and impetuous serve God. God needs some testimonies that people with a little more common sense serve God too! And of course, you are living deceitfully because Jesus said that you cannot make one hair black or gray and so when you dye it or pluck it, you are just trying to fool people, but your hair is still the original color on the inside (Matthew 5:6). And of course, it's also vanity or pride that causes people to do such things as change their hair color. But let's move on... .

________________________________________________________________________

Having understood the process of graying in the physical, let's now move on to the spiritual. "yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." God is talking about a lack of knowledge of a natural process when He says these words. That is, it is not a bad thing to have gray hairs, but it is a bad thing to have gray hairs and not know it. In the physical to not realize the process of aging and the effect that it has on your body and take normal precautions is dangerous.

Think about this: aging is a result of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden. Originally man and woman did not age to the place of regression and the breaking down of the body. If Adam and Eve had not sinned and then had a baby, that baby would have grown up and matured until it reached peak physical condition and then stayed that way for as long as God allowed. There would not have been the procession of physical and mental decline that we face today. I won't go into a long scientific and depressing statistics of how many million brain cells that you lose a minute or how your spinal column compresses and your bones get more and more brittle with age, but understand that from about the age of 30 on, the body begins a natural process of dying. The innocence of the mind that was lost and the restoration of the spirit of man that died in the garden are brought back to life through the infilling of the Holy Ghost and the power of the blood and the Word of God. And God has provided a way out of physical death at the Rapture of the Church. When Jesus comes back for His church, Spirit-filled and blood-washed believers who have lived accordingly to the Word of God will be given a glorified body and their soul and spirit will live forever in a body that cannot die! Paul says that this will be the last enemy to be conquered, this enemy of death and the grave (1 Corinthians 15:26).

But for some reason, God has allowed in this life the process of aging and breaking down of this natural body to continue. Perhaps, it is a natural warning sign to us that we'd better take the things of God more seriously and think about spiritual things more closely. Of course, the young don't have tomorrow promised either, but perhaps aging is just another extension of the mercy of God to remind you that this life is just temporal and passing and that the reality is heaven and living somewhere forever. As Solomon found out, aging happens to even the most wise and the most rich, and so it testifies that all of us despite our circumstances in life need to give careful consideration and planning to the eternity to come. God could, if He wanted, reverse aging, and He will help you through the aches and pains that come along with it, but eventually God always lets the "graying process" take it's course. Even the resurrected Lazarus eventually died of old age.

The natural process of aging reveals the folly of believing in the evolution of life. As time goes by, man and animals both grow progressively worse. If something is left alone and not tended to, it is quickly reduced to a state of disarray. That the universe holds together testifies of the existence and ability of a God who created it. With all of our "intelligence" and "progress" and "knowledge" humanity has just managed to invent ways to take more time from God, remove prayer and such from our lives, and to kill more people more quickly. So much for the so called "evolution of the species." One of the most basic laws is that everything in the natural is slowly deteriorating and coming apart. The Ozone layer, the global warming, the coming closer of the sun, and boy, do I sound like a doomsday prophet!

What's the point, preacher? I'm glad you asked. God was not talking in Hosea about the physical condition of Ephraim but the spiritual. "yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." He is speaking of a spiritual deterioration that is going on and here's the point:

What's true in the physical is also true in the spiritual. And the natural process in the spirit world is for us to slowly deteriorate. It is the natural process for spiritual "gray hairs" to begin to pop up in our relationship. Let me show you what I mean.

You get the Holy Ghost, and it is the most awesome experience that you have ever experienced. For a few weeks, or even months, you live off of the high of that one experience. Life is good, and a little persecution doesn't bother you. Church is exciting and you can't wait to hear what the preacher is going to preach next. But then some spiritual "gray hairs" begin to pop up. Some of the outward things don't contain the sincerity and the passion that they once had. A few old temptations begin to try to seduce you. The natural process of life begins to rob your joy, your enthusiasm, and your commitment. You were born again, but then began a spiritual graying process; a process of deterioration of the power working in your life.

Most people have noticed the natural process of some new converts. When everything is new and exciting and different, they are gung-ho in their worship, the giving of their time, and their passion for prayer, praise, soul-winning, whatever the preacher preaches about. But the natural process is that as time goes by and some distance passes between the present and their initial experience, the natural process is that the passion fades and the enthusiasm fades and the outlook changes somewhat. The spiritual graying process begins and the stress of living holy in a sinful world begins to cause a little spiritual aging in a person's spirit. All of us have experienced the cooling off of the flames of revival in our life. All of us have seen in ourselves and in others the passions that were once so in tune with the Spirit to become distracted until they are to the point of being consumed by other things. We've all noticed the "gray hairs" of spiritual deterioration in our life such as a lack of a desire of prayer, no fasting, not excited about going to church, a slacking off of heart-felt worship, and doubt of God's promises, and critical attitudes toward others. And unfortunately, some people have accepted the spiritual graying process as inevitable and something that can't be changed!

But I'm here to preach to you today! It's not a bad thing to have gray hair, but it is a horrible thing to have it and not recognize it! The worst thing that you can do is not to admit that you have slacked off or that you need to draw closer to God. All of us will have to deal with the graying process in the spirit, but the tragedy is to deny that it is happening and all the while grow more and more distant from God. "Ephraim: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." It's a tragedy, because if he doesn't see the signs of aging and deterioration on his spiritual man, then he will do nothing about it! If he is blinded to the reality of his degeneration then there is no hope of escape of death.

And so I'm preaching to you! Unlike the natural process, there is a cure for this spiritual process! Graying physically may be inevitable, but you don't have to live in an decaying relationship with God. We serve a God who can reknew you and refill you and restore you and bind you up! His right hand will lift you up and can replace the passion and the hunger and the closeness that you once had. Did He not promise in His Word?

He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost! When you were born again, you were created a new creature in Christ Jesus full of faith and power and determination! But let me ask you if God cannot do such a thing again? Can the God who created you in the first place not also reknew you in that life!? Can God not take the lukewarm and reignite them with the fire of the Holy Ghost? Can He not take the failure of Peter and restore him into the purpose and plan of God!? Yes, God can! We serve a God who is able to restore and rebuild and to reknew and to rekindle and to revive and to regenerate every area of our lives, but we must first admit that we need such a work for it to happen! It is a natural process of life to wear down our relationship with God and every once in a while to grow discouraged or go through a "dry spell" but it is a tragedy of our own fault to stay there because we refuse to admit that we need to be prayed through and that we need a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit!

________________________________________________________________________

Let's look at what can cause someone to reach a place where they refuse to admit that they need a refilling of the Holy Ghost and a fresh endowment of power and anointing. What is it exactly that makes people refuse to see the gray in the Spirit? What is it that causes people not to notice the devouring of their spiritual strength?

In the next verse, we find Ephraim's cause of unconsciousness:

Ephraim's problem was pride! To admit that they needed a fresh touch of the Lord would be to admit that they were less than perfect or perhaps struggling in an area that others were not struggling in. Ephraim would have to admit that everything that they had been doing on their own was wrong if they turned back to the Lord and asked for "a brand new mercy." Israel's unconscious graying in the spiritual realm was founded on pride. It was easier to ignore than face the facts that they needed God again!

So is this principle still in effect today. How many people do not really pour their heart out to God at an altar call or during a worship service, because someone else is not also doing it. In other words, their pride at not wanting to stand out and be completely transparent in front of others keeps us sometimes from getting all we need from God. The thoughts go through our mind "the sermon was right to me today, but if I stay longer than five minutes, everyone will know." or "I'll stand out if I really lose myself in worship and everyone will think that I'm not as spiritually mature as they are." or "if I request special prayer, the pastor or the church will think less of me." All of those are foolish thoughts founded in nothing more than pride. And unfortunately can become disastrous thoughts if they lead to such rationalization as "well, I probably didn't need to pray as much as I thought I did." or "I'm not that bad... after all so and so is worse off than I am." Spiritual graying and not realizing it. You are denying the deterioration of your spiritual man and to do that is certainly very dangerous indeed!

I've known people whose actions and choices caused them to end up way away from God's will and plan, and yet because they hated to admit that they were wrong and needed to correct something, they would not come back to the will of God and the plan of God choosing instead to live out of the will of God than have to swallow their pride! Ephraim, you're not as sensitive as you once were and not as close to God as you should be, and yet despite this graying, you refuse to admit that you need to return to God. And God wants to help, but if you continue to let pride stand between you and God, He will be forced to one day say about you "yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not."

The only other reason that I can think that someone might have had gray hairs in that time and not known it was a lack of mirrors or a failure to believe what the mirror told them. We know that mirrors had been invented by the Egyptians before the time of Hosea because when Israel came out of Egypt in the time of Moses many of the ladies donated their "looking glasses" to the house of God to make the brazen laver. But we really don't know how many people owned them in the time of this prophet's preaching.

I do know that in our other text, James clearly told us that the Word of God was a mirror in the Spirit. In our text, he said:

There are two dangerous ways that people become like Ephraim and give in to unconscious graying. The first is that they refuse to look into the mirror of God's Word. There are some that they don't want to hear what the Word of God says about a particular subject because they think that somehow that if they don't know it doesn't matter. But it does matter and you and I will be judged according to these books whether we know it or not. Someone who would rather not go to church and Bible Study and would rather not know what the Bible really says about something or wishes that the preacher would just preach on something else than "that" subject, is like Ephraim and yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." Because they never do anything about their issues and sins and degeneracy, they are destined to die in their sins to face the wrath of God. Eventually, like the bird caught in the snare, their lack of knowledge will lead to their own demise.

The second condition is outlined in our text in the Book of James. The Book of James was written to born-again, Spirit-filled believers. It was written to church folks. And yet obviously there were some who when they heard the Word of God preached and taught and it was something that they needed to change, they walked away and purposefully forgot what they had heard. Such people, James said, were like someone who looks in a mirror and then in denial walks away and forgets what they see. They can only see the problem when they gaze in the mirror and so they would rather avoid the mirror rather than do something about the reality. They are hearers only and not doers of the Word of God.

When you get the attitude that the Word of God is not talking to you and the sermon is not relevant to you, and "he's not preaching to me." Then you are entering a dangerous state spiritually. You are becoming like Ephraim and there are things that are popping up and God can see them and so can everyone else, but you are in denial that you need to change. Ephraim was God's chosen people and had access to the Word of God and had a preacher in their life telling them the truth and yet they died lost because yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." There is danger in refusing to allow the Word of God to speak to you and to be that mirror that reveals the truth of our present condition. To be a "hearer only and not a doer" of the Word is to look into the mirror of God's Word and then ignore the graying of the Spirit.

James referred to the mirror of the Word of God as the "perfect law of liberty." Remember that to look into the Word of God and see yourself truthfully in it may be painful at times and may be pride destroying, but it will only bring goodness and liberty in your life! Jesus said "ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." But if you refuse to admit the truth of your need to change, then you will always be in bondage to that which holds you. Let's not make the mistake of Ephraim and have said about us yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not."

________________________________________________________________________

I close with this:

The issue was his hair length, and not the color of it, but no one person exudes the danger of unconscious spiritual graying and the gradual losing of spiritual power than the story of Samson. He was to be the savior of Israel and the destroyer of God's enemies. Because of his vow, Samson was not to cut his hair and in return God's Spirit would move on him at times and endow him with supernatural strength. It's a great story and a much preached one. And it could have been greater except that the story ends with Samson giving into the charms of a Philistine harlot who sells him out for money. Three times the charmer Delilah, asked for the secret to Samson's strength, and finally on the third time he relented and when asleep, had his hair cut and when Delilah awoke him the third time, look at what happened:

Someone here asked my wife earlier this week "was Samson stupid? How come he couldn't see that she was trying to destroy him?" Let me answer that question by pointing out that the scripture says that "he wist not that the Lord was departed from him." Samson could see what was happening, but he refused to believe it. He could see the graying in the spirit, but refused to acknowledge his mistake in choosing this woman. Samson lost his eyes and his life because of allowing unconscious graying in his spiritual calling.

This was pretty obvious wasn't it that Delilah had it out for him, but see Samson had already spent a lifetime ignoring the warning signals that he was headed the wrong direction. He had ignored the warning of his parents about the Philistine girls. He had ignored the danger signs of the fact that he was growing further and further from the will of God. And so because he had gotten used to not being truthful with himself, it was easy to not believe something that is so crystal clear to us looking on: that Delilah was out to destroy him. The point is that once you start ignoring the spiritual gray, then it becomes hard to get out of that mode and save yourself from even the most obvious truths of your life. Ephraim, if you don't shake yourself now and realize that there is a decaying of your spiritual fabric, then you are going to find yourself in a situation that is out to destroy you and you will not be able to say no or to face the reality of it. Once you start to deceive yourself, it's hard to stop. But I don't ever want to wake up one day and find that God had departed from me and I didn't even know it!

The most disheartening thing and most scary thing that I find about Samson is that he did not appear to have a man of God in his life. An angel announced his birth and there is not a mention of a prophet or spiritual authority in his life other than his parents. I doubt that God allowed a time of Israel to go by without such a man or woman so it's a logical conclusion that Samson was not drawn to hang out with other prophets or spiritual leaders. Indeed every time we see him, we see him flirting with the enemy. Perhaps, things would have turned out differently for Samson if he would have had a Samuel or a Hosea pointing out the graying in his spiritual life. The tragedy is, because he removed himself from all spiritual authority, we'll never know for sure.

But as to you and I and Ephraim, we don't have that excuse. God has put Hosea in our life and every one of us have a man of God that we can choose to listen to. When a preacher gets up and preaches to it, take heed to what has been spoken and correct what needs to be corrected. They are trying to keep God from saying about you "yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." As the story of Ephraim and Samson bear out, to have such a condition as to not be able to admit that you need to change and to have unconscious graying in the spirit is a fatal mistake! Someone listen to the lesson and warning of Hosea!